I’ve woken up with bad songs in my head before. Remember the Total Eclipse of the Heart fiasco? And just this week I had Afternoon Delight careening through my brain one morning. But today. Today was the worst. The song I woke up singing this morning at 4am is surely a harbinger of doom and destruction, a sign that today is going to be a day of disasters.
I woke up singing Christmas Shoes.
As if Christmas songs in November isn’t bad enough, it had to that one?
Sir I wanna buy these shoes for my Momma please
It’s Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry Sir?
Daddy says there’s not much time
You see she’s been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes will make her smile
And I want it to look beautiful
If Momma meets Jesus tonight
I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to beat the singer with a pair of stiletto heeled shoes. Seriously. I just don’t get songs like this. I mean, I don’t have anything against sad songs, per se, but this thing wants to jerk the tears out of your eyes with a fucking claw hammer. It’s emotional porn. Like those Chicken Soup for the Soul books, turned up about twelve notches.
Now I’ve got Christmas songs running through my head. It was pretty inevitable, even at this early date. Every store is playing Christmas music. My daughter has some emo pop punk Christmas thing playing all the time. My nephew seems to delight in singing the chorus from Jingle Bell Rock over and over and over again.
I hate Christmas music. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the stores didn’t start piping it in sometime around Halloween. By the time December rolls around, I want to deck the halls with random body parts of Salvation Army workers. I’ve already had enough of Winter Wonderland and the Barbara Streisand version of Jingle Bells is enough to make me convert to Judaism.
The thing is, I don’t mind getting into the holiday spirit. The holiday season is a nice time of year. Peace, love, family togetherness and all that crap. I don’t want to completely blot out the holiday atmosphere.
So each year I compile a holiday playlist that will keep me in the mood, but keep me from choking a random elf. I play these tunes as shop online or decorate the tree or watch my neighbor go down on his blow-up Santa. I load the playlist up on my iPod when my coworkers break out into a spontaneous chorus of It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.
I always take suggestions from the peanut gallery. That’s you, by the way. Add on any songs you think fit the bill here. The Alternative Christmas Playlist usually consists of alternate versions of Christmas classics, metal/punk bands doing holiday music, as well as offbeat, or just deranged, seasonal songs that deal with the less jolly side of Christmas (for instance, that Weird Al song about Santa going crazy at the mall, any South Park Christmas song, etc.) or just plain weird holiday songs. Please, no Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.
I’ll start off this year’s playlist. I’m looking to you to complete it.
In other news, holy crap, I’ve been doing this online for eight years.
King Diamond – No Presents for Christmas
Spinal Tap – Christmas With the Devil
Vandals – Christmastime For My Penis
Pennywise – Christmas in Hell
Captain Sensible – One Christmas Catalogue
Fear – Fuck Christmas
Christmas in Hollis – Run-D.M.C.
Snoop Doggy Dogg – Santa Claus Goes Straight To The Ghetto
Zebrahead – I Hate Christmas
Wesley Willis – Merry Christmas
Wall Of Voodoo – Shouldn’t Have Given Him A Gun For Christmas
The Damned – There Ain’t No Sanity Claus
Pansy Division – Homo Christmas -
The Frogs – Here Comes Santa’s Pussy
Stiff Little Fingers – White Christmas
Hanoi Rocks – Dead By X-mas
Vandals – My First Xmas As A Woman
Blink 182 – I Won’t Be Home For Christmas
Eazy E – Merry Mothafuckin’ Xmas
Arrogant Worms – Santa’s Gonna Kick Your Ass
Ramones – Merry Christmas Baby (I Don’t Want to Fight)
Pennywise – Christmas in Hell
For your viewing/listening pleasure, King Diamond’s holiday classic, No Presents For Christmas.
